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France’s citizens vote in favour of open source

Free software's use in public sector in top three of votes for "Digital Republic"

France’s citizens are in favour of their public administrations’ use of free and open source software. France should also implement this type of software in education, according to the results of a public consultation on France’s Digital Republic bill (La République numérique). After twenty days of public debate and voting on proposals, the consultation ended on Sunday. La République numérique – the Digital Republic – drew 147,710 votes, received 8501 proposals and attracted 21,330 participants.

The proposals will now be considered by the French government. “In a few days we will see if they are included in the bill that will be submitted to the parliament”, writes April, France’s free software advocacy group. April’s proposal to make free software the priority for public administrations came in 3rd, in the top-ten of most-voted proposals.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
Another suggestion by April, to equate the source code of government software solutions to (public) administrative documents, also got a lot of support from voters. This proposal is 7th in the top-ten of votes. In the days running up to the consultation’s deadline, April had been asking its supporters to vote for its proposals.

Similarly, the Conseil National du Logiciel Libre, a trade group representing some three hundred ICT firms, had been calling on its members and supporters to participate and vote. CNLL is advocating the use of open standards, and wants public administrations to give priority to free software.